


Hearing the Wren Sing

by Nightdog_Barks



Category: FlashForward
Genre: Episode Related, Introspection, Melancholy, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-02
Updated: 2009-10-02
Packaged: 2017-10-18 07:32:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/186464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nightdog_Barks/pseuds/Nightdog_Barks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Demetri thinks over some new-found knowledge.  185 words.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hearing the Wren Sing

**Title:** Hearing the Wren Sing  
 **Author:** [](http://nightdog-barks.livejournal.com/profile)[**nightdog_barks**](http://nightdog-barks.livejournal.com/)  
 **Characters:** Demetri  
 **Rating:** PG-13  
 **Warnings:** None  
 **Spoilers:** Yes, for episode 1.02, "White to Play"  
 **Summary:** Demetri thinks over some new-found knowledge. 185 words.  
 **Disclaimer:** Don't own 'em. Never will.  
 **Beta:** [](http://euclase.livejournal.com/profile)[**euclase**](http://euclase.livejournal.com/)

  
 **Hearing the Wren Sing**

  
Demetri looks at himself in the mirror, raises a hand to his cheek where there's still a healing scar.

When he was in college, he'd enrolled in Modern American Poetry because his brother Nikolai's girlfriend's sister was taking the course.

And this was way before Zoey, and she was hot, and his roommate had told him girls in lit classes were easy lays -- at least the ones who weren't lesbians. Which was probably most of them, but maybe Demetri would luck out.

Demetri _had_ lucked out, at least for a while, but that's not what he's thinking about now.

One of the poets they'd studied had been a guy named Merwin, who'd written about his own death, about not knowing the date but passing it every single year since he'd been alive.

Demetri looks at himself in the mirror. Well, now he knows the date.

The scar is already fading, going white at the ends like frayed thread. His own dark eyes stare back at him.

He wonders if there'll still be a trace of it when he's gone.

~ fin

 _Every year without knowing it I have passed the day  
When the last fires will wave to me  
And the silence will set out  
Tireless traveller  
Like the beam of a lightless star_

 _Then I will no longer  
Find myself in life as in a strange garment  
Surprised at the earth  
And the love of one woman  
And the shamelessness of men  
As today writing after three days of rain  
Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease  
And bowing not knowing to what_

~ W.S. Merwin, _For the Anniversary of My Death_  
Online source [here](http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/W-S-Merwin/1680)


End file.
